Thanks 2016!

It is almost inevitable that, a little bit into the new year, reflect on the year gone by.It has for the world been, to say the least, a turbulent year and many of us were looking forward to putting it behind us in the hope that the new year will be better.

No one has escaped all the different tragedies, all the violence, all the fear and hatred around the world, it has totally swarmed over us.But if I choose to look at Barnhem and 2016, we have only one thing to mourn and it is the fact that Thailand's king died, his death has brought great sadness to the whole of Thailand.

In addition, we only have lots to be thankful for and have only met kindness, love and caring - so I want to give some time to all we have to be grateful for in this blog.

We are to begin with both grateful and proud that our children are doing well in school and that most of them have really good grades and that they in addition are a bunch of wonderful kids who care for and help each other. But we are just as grateful that they feel secure enough to dare to stir up mischief and be defiant and really annoying sometimes.We are grateful for our six new family members and that one of our girls were able to move out as her mom's life has subsided.

We are extremely grateful that we now have a fully renovated and nice home for our children. On 1 October we had the re-opening of our new home and we really enjoy our new home! The rooms are bright and fresh with proper toilets and showers, electricity is safe, no water leaks any longer, the kitchen has been transformed into a kitchen for real professionals, which our professional staff deserve. The dining room is large and bright and it is easier for everyone to help with cleaning after dinner, we have a really great washing areawith real hot water machines and possibilities to dry the laundry, and last but not least, we have received our amazing sporting area where we can train, sport and play in all weathers as well as after dark.

We are enormously grateful for The Happy World Tour and that we got the opportunity to see them off on the day we opened our new home on 1 October. We are so grateful for these three amazing people - Calle, Eva Lovisa - they are crazy enough and strong enough to be exposed for a round the world cycling in favour of us. We follow them with excitement and get to learn about the world around us at the same time.

We are happy and grateful that we finally got the chance to show Wow Sweden and for all in Sweden who had the opportunity to meet Wow. Our amazing Wow that we cannot do without. We are grateful that she could be part of this year's An Evening for Happy Child and for all our friends who chose to come to the event on this beautiful late summer evening in Sweden.

We are proud of and grateful to Neng who has done fantastically well at the university and who has got an nternship at Phosworks in Uppsala! We are also relieved and thankful that he got his residence permit for 4 months so he get the chance to experience Sweden.And thanks to this we also had the opportunity to spend a little extra time with our son, who has been studying in Chiang Rai for three and a half years.He first came down to the re-opening and could inspire the rest of the children by telling them about his years at the university. As he was here we could get him his passport. Then we got to see him twice more - once in Bangkok where we met up to submit his application for a residence permit and a second time when we went up and greeted him in Chiang Rai to hand over the residence permit. And here we are - January 6 he is off to Sweden.

We are equally proud of and grateful to Non that has got accepted to study Architecture, English program at King Mongkut's University of Technology. And we are immensely grateful to all of you that want to help him with Scholarship, we already have 84% of his university costs covered.

And then everything amazing that has been happening in Sweden.

Many thanks Fritidshemmet GIII: an for still choosing to support us with your annual flea market, which you have done since the start!An equally big thank you to City-Kliniken who year after year choose to work for free one day a year for the benefit of Happy Child and Barnhem.A giant thank you to Granit for choosing to support us with your Omtanke products all these years and for still choosing to do so.

Thanks to Johanna Larsson and Äpplegårdens Golf Club who organised a golf tournament for the benefit of Happy Child and Barnhem!Many thanks to Sandra and Camilla at Shades as you chosen to dedicate a whole day to cut the hair of Swedish children for the benefit of our children!

Lots of thanks to Kjell Bergqvist and family for being great supporter of Barnhem for all these years and for now having launched Kjelles Tavelresa together with fantastic Emil Grönholm in favour of Happy Child and Barnhem and for the benefit of his own swimming school and Walking Pool for Life.

And all of our volunteers over the years! Thank you for choosing to come here and that many of you choose to come back to visit or to work as volunteers again.A current volunteer-record is held by our fantastic Emil Jansson who celebrated its fifth period in a row with us last year, and who will be supporting Neng in Uppsala when he is there.And then we have Anne and her Ole - Anne has been a volunteer with us for two periods, and she and Ole come to visit us every year - what would a month of November be without you!In only a few days, Jenny Andersson will come back for her second voluntary period and before she came to Thailand she engaged Friskis and Svettis in Trollhättan so they had a training day in favour of Happy Child and Barnhem.

Last but not least, we are so very grateful for all of you who choose to support us year after year - it is you who make this possible!If I could, I would like to mention you all by name, but thankfully, I cannot.I just wish so fervently that I in words could explain to you how important you are!